Recently, a technique to diagnose illness at an early stage has been established by collecting noninvasively a sample from a living body and analyzing a chemical substance contained in the sample at an ultralow amount. The sample collected from the living body includes urine, exhalation, gas diffused from a skin surface, persipiration, or spit.
For example, Patent Document 1 discloses a method for screening bladder cancer from the amount of hyaluronic acid and hyaluronidase contained in urine. According to the Patent Document 1, a patient disease by bladder cancer has a higher amount of hyaluronic acid in his/her urine than a normal individual. Bladder cancer can be inspected easily and noninvasively with the method disclosed in the Patent Document 1.
Exhalation is also one of important sample for diagnose illness. Not only water, nitrogen, oxygen and carbon dioxide but also metabolic component is contained in the exhalation at an extremely small amount. The metabolic component includes volatile organic compound or volatile sulfide compound released by gaseous exchange between alveoli and blood capillaries. An example of the metabolic component is alcohol, ketone, aldehyde, amine, aromatic hydrocarbon, fatty acid, isoprene, mercaptan, or derivatives from these components.
It is believed that there are some sort of relationship between illness and an ultralow amount of the metabolic component in the exhalation. Non-patent documents 1 to 4 disclose the research revealing correlation between illness and the metabolic component in the exhalation.
Unlike blood, urine or exhalation can be collected without physical and mental pain to a patient. Accordingly, a method for diagnosing with the sample composed of urine or exhalation is expected to be used for domestic diagnosis, follow-up after surgery, or prevention of illness.
However, since urine and exhalation are collected noninvasively, it is known that the concentration of the chemical substance contained in the urine or exhalation, which is suspected to have relationship with illness, is lower than the concentration of the diagnostic marker in a blood. The Patent Document 1 and Non-patent document 4 disclose that urine contains a diagnostic marker at a concentration of only 1 ng/ml and that exhalation contains at a concentration of only 1 ppm to 1 ppt.
Accordingly, a prior analyzing device comprises a mechanism to condense the chemical substance contained in the sample collected noninvasively.
For example, the exhalation analyzing device disclosed in the patent document 2 analyzes the resulted condensate liquid after the exhalation is cooled and condensed in the analyzing device. FIG. 25 shows the exhalation analyzing device disclosed in the patent document 1.
The exhalation blown by a patient is cooled and the resulted condensate liquid is collected with the exhalation analyzing device 901 shown in FIG. 25. The exhalation analyzing device 901 comprises a condensate part 902, a recover well 903, an inlet, an outlet, a curvature 904, and a flow path structure 905. The exhalation is injected from the inlet into the exhalation analyzing device 901, and discharged from the outlet. The condensate liquid of the exhalation is generated at the outer peripheral surface of the condensate part 902, which has the curvature 904. Since almost all the surface of the condensate part 902 is hydrophobic, the droplets of the resulted condensate liquid moves to the lower end of the condensate part 902. The droplets accumulated at the lower end drops into the recover well 903.
The period to obtain the condensate liquid at an amount necessary for analysis is required according to the exhalation analyzing device shown in FIG. 25. However, it is relatively simple to handle the device. Accordingly, the analysis of the exhalation component with the exhalation analyzing device shown in FIG. 25 is one of generally used procedures.
Patent Document 3 discloses an example of a condensing method using electrostatic atomization. According to this procedure, by atomizing electro-statically tenuous nonvolatile biomolecule, the solvent in a mist is evaporated to condense the biomolecule contained in the dilution. The procedure can be used for condensing and analyzing nonvolatile component contained in urine. FIG. 26 shows a condensation means of the biomolecule disclosed in the patent document 3.
A deposition of nonvolatile substances containing huge biomolecule is formed with the electrostatic atomizing device 906 shown in FIG. 26. The deposition is used to measure the interaction between the deposition of nonvolatile substances and other substances. Patent Document 3 discloses that the deposition according to electrostatic atomizing method of a living molecule can be used as a means for micro-condensing a biomolecule dilution.
Patent document 4 discloses a device for analyzing volatile component in exhalation or urine more easily with electrostatic atomization. In the analyzing device, after vapor and chemical substances are condensed into an atomizing electrode part, they are configured to be electric-charged fine particles. The chemical substance is condensed while electric-charged fine particles move from the atomizing electrode part to a detector of the chemical substance.
Citation List
[Patent Document]
                [Patent Document 1]        Japanese Laid-open patent publication No. 2000-504114 (pages 11-12)        [Patent Document 2]        US 2007/173731 (Page 13, FIG. 20)        [Patent Document 3]        Japanese Laid-open patent publication No. 2002-511792 (page 78, FIG. 9)        [Patent Document 4]        WO 2009/057256 (Page 1/12, FIG. 1)        [Patent Document 5]        Japanese Laid-open patent publication No. 2008-128955 (Particularly, front page, FIG. 6(d), and paragraph 0055)        [Non-Patent Document]        [Non-Patent Document 1]        THE LANCET, 353, pp. 1930-1933(1999)        [Non-Patent Document 2]        ANALYTICAL BIOCHEMISTRY 247, pp. 272-278 (1997)        [Non-Patent Document 3]        The American Journal of Cardiology pp. 1593-1594 (2004)        [Non-Patent Document 4]        Respiratory Physiology & Neurobiology 145, pp. 295-300 (2005)        